HEADTEACHERS have written to MPs to warn that funding changes will affect educational standards.

Brighton and Hove secondary school headteachers sent the joint letter calling for the city’s three MPs to stand up for their constituencies and to demand fair funding.

They also slammed the Government’s move towards more grammar schools.

Richard Bradford, headteacher of Dorothy Stringer and chairman of the Brighton and Hove Secondary School Partnership which represents all ten of the city’s state secondaries, told MPs schools do not have adequate funds to provide children with a decent education.

He said: “To make matters worse, far worse, the Department for Education (DfE) continues to divert significant monies to capital and revenue funding such as free school provision and grammar school expansion and this does not always guarantee value for money. At the same time, our schools simply do not have adequate funds to provide the education that every child in our care needs and deserves.

“To see such ill-judged spending being prioritised in a time of austerity is unacceptable. The disconnect between a department making decisions that seem to entirely ignore the wishes and needs of dedicated and committed school leaders provides significant and tangible cause for concern.

“School leaders simply want a reasonable settlement that sees every child in every school adequately funded. There is no question that schools with differing contextual challenges should be funded differently but this should not come at the expense of allowing every school to operate effectively on behalf of the pupils’ families and communities that we serve.

“We need, therefore, for our local political representatives to stand up for every school in their constituency and make clear that considerable changes to funding arrangements/proposals must be put in place.”

The letter is part of a wider campaign involving 13 counties across the South calling on the Government to protect school funding and urgently bring in a new fair funding formula that will take into account inflationary cost pressures.

The New Funding Formula will be introduced in April 2018 after being put back a year. Historically, more money has been channelled to areas that have high levels of social need with cash going to those in inner cities and areas of deprivation.

The National Union of Teachers claims Brighton and Hove schools face cuts in funding totalling more than £11 million over four years. The action comes followingcampaigns from headteachers in West and East Sussex.

MP WARNS THERE IS NO FAT TO TRIM IN SCHOOLS’ BUDGET

CAROLINE LUCAS has warned there is “no fat to trim” from the schools’ budget.

The Green Brighton Pavilion MP said: “I am in close touch with all the heads in the constituency and I am responding to the Government’s consultation to ensure that Education Minister Justine Greening is made well aware of the serious damage that underfunding poses to our city’s schools.

“There is no fat to trim and headteachers are in dismay at being ignored. I am doing all I can to make sure that their voices and those of worried parents and guardians are heard.”

Peter Kyle, Labour MP for Hove, also backed the call for action. He said: “Our local headteachers have hit the nail on the head. Per pupil funding is set to drop and investment will be diverted away from improving our great local schools that deliver quality and social mobility, to others that don’t.

“Local headteachers have asked for my support and they will get it, 100 per cent.”

Conservative Brighton Kemptown MP Simon Kirby said he had written to the Education Minister, adding: “There is currently a historic and opaque postcode lottery in funding which I believe to be unfair and outdated. It is time for it to be reformed.”